NCAA schools implement baseball recruiting calendars to level the playing field and prioritize the welfare of student-athletes. These calendars regulate the recruitment timeline, the involved parties, and the allowable recruiting activities. There are a variety of factors that give some schools an unfair advantage from a recruiting standpoint. Some of these include budget, geographic location, and recruiting capabilities. Although it’s not perfect, the recruiting calendar is one of the levers that the NCAA has put in place to make sure that baseball programs have equal recruiting opportunities.
If you want to be on a level playing field as a prospective college baseball player, you should check out this helpful college search tool. It is a free resource that contains roster insights, coaching info, recruiting questionnaires, and upcoming camps/clinics for hundreds of four year baseball schools.
Baseball Recruiting Broken out by Period
If you’re not familiar with what a dead period is, it’s a time during the recruiting calendar where coaches can not have in person contact with prospective college baseball players or parents. This also limits a coach’s ability to watch players compete in games. During this period they can still communicate with players. It can only take place through phone conversations or writing. There are two other types of ‘periods’ that make up the recruiting calendar for DI baseball programs.
The quiet period runs from mid October through the end of February, along with a few weeks in August and September. During the quiet period, a coach can have in person contact with a prospective player or parent. These conversations must occur on campus. The only way a coach may watch a player compete is if the competition occurs on the university campus. During the quiet period, programs tend to hold clinics and camps. Through these on campus events, they can still recruit players face-to-face, while abiding by the recruiting rules. Coaches are still able communicate with players through phone or writing during this time.
The last one is the contact period, which is where coaches are not restricted with their recruiting activities. Coaches can have face-to-face visits with players, observe competition at high schools, and communicate with players through phone or writing. The COVID-19 recruiting restrictions caused the loss of the majority of the contact period that runs from the start of March through mid-August.
2019 -20 DI NCAA Baseball Recruiting Calendar
Green: Contact Period
Tan: Quiet Period
Red: Dead Period
*The calendar below is not reflective of the dead period that was implemented starting mid March. With the NCAA’s recent announcement, the dead period has been extended through July 31st.
2019-20 DII NCAA Baseball Recruiting Calendar
Outside of extraordinary circumstances, Division II does not impose any dead or quiet periods for baseball. Therefore, D2 treats everything as a contact period. With the current COVID-19 situation, authorities imposed a dead period through May 31st, 2020. Differing from the decision made by DI, DII recently made an announcement that they plan to move to a quiet period for the month of June. This would allow coaches to have face-to-face contact with college bound players, only while on campus. With this decision, it allows programs to hold clinics and camps that are held on campus, and conduct in person recruiting through those channels. Programs would still have to abide by local and state restrictions that are in place.
